Better data, a shared language, stronger branding and a willingness to stand behind the value of the service will all help DSPs demonstrate their true value. To do this, Steve Jordan argues that the sector needs a fundamental rethink of how it measures what it does and how it communicates this to its customers.

First, let me own up: I am no expert on destination service providers (DSPs). I have, however, spent more than 50 years in the international moving business and the past 35 years helping companies, in many fields, communicate better with their customers. My job has been to ask the stupid questions that those who are embroiled in their business forget to ask, or feel they cannot ask.

To give me the necessary background to form an opinion, I spoke to several people who know the DSP business inside out. To allow them to speak freely, I agreed to use none of their names here, but I thank them all for their wisdom.

The problem was explained succinctly in Magali Horbert’s article ‘Making the invisible visible’, in the last issue of FIDI Focus (322). In short, many customers don’t understand what DSPs do, and therefore they don’t fully appreciate their value. The industry has become commoditised and there’s a race to the bottom on pricing that potentially makes the whole sector unsustainable. Sound familiar?

People don’t know what they don’t know, so there is often a misunderstanding between what DSPs do and what their customers think they do. Assignees know, for example, that they need a house to live in at destination, but they have no idea of the hoops and pitfalls that await them, to jump and fall into, along the way. The same is true of every other service the DSP provides. A good DSP will solve those difficulties as it goes, so – more often than not – the assignee doesn’t know what service they have had, even after they have had it. It’s largely been invisible to them.

But it seems that global mobility people in corporations, and the relocation management companies that represent them, know what’s going on. They appreciate the excellent job that most DSPs do to protect them and help ensure a successful assignment. They may understate the apparent value to help drive the price down, but they know. Of course they do. The problem is how to give them the ammunition to convince their procurement departments, who are figures-driven, that the services they want are worth paying for. Perhaps to do anything less would be a dereliction of their duty to their employees. It sounds simple, but it’s not.

As I see it, there are four problems: we need more data; we need to change the language we use; we need a global brand for relocation services; and we need the will to make it all work. Let’s look at each one.

Data

Getting the facts

Unless we can get the facts, paymasters will have an excuse for paying less. If, for example, we had data that accurately proved a causal link between the success of a relocation and the success of an assignment, then our sales proposition would change completely. But we haven’t. It would require the corporations to provide us with their data to help us charge them more. I don’t think that will happen soon. Maybe some of our IT professionals could leverage the power of AI and bring that to us in the future. Let us hope.

Until then, we will have to rely on evidence collected by DSPs that supports their case: hotel days not taken, deposits returned, etc. To get this, they will need to become better at asking for information in a structured way, so that the whole industry compiles the same figures. They don’t need to gather everything, just enough to justify their costs.

They will also need to rely on circumstantial evidence: success stories gathered at source, distributed through the efficiency of social media, and repeated ad nauseam until the customers finally believe what we are saying – and we believe it, too. Even if DSPs/RMCs are not paid to do it, gathering this evidence may be the key to the next job, or to maintaining price levels. It’s valuable work. Of course, this will be tricky when people are already wrestling overflowing inboxes.

Branding

Changing the words

Our industry lexicon is, I believe, letting us down. For example, ‘removals’ – what does that mean? I once told a US immigration officer I was in the removals business and he thought I was an undertaker.

‘Relocation’? No, I don’t think so. Relocation is an intensely human business in which companies are required to be totally immersed in their clients’ lives, guiding them through possibly the most disturbing, stressful, totally disruptive time in their lives, even being their psychotherapist – and we call it ‘relocation’. The word is far too cold, prosaic and process-related. You can relocate an apple tree from one side of the garden to the other, but a family from New York to Cape Town? Definitely not!

We need a word, or phrase, that makes us sound like the caring human beings we are, not automatons.

I’m not sure about ‘mobility’ either. To me, this word means services for disabled people. Yet, in all the years I have been involved in the industry, attending conferences all over the world, I have never once heard anyone question the words we use. Perhaps we should.

Building a brand

We need a brand. Ask someone to tell you what ‘relocation’ is, explaining all its nuances. Will they be able to do it? I doubt it. The industry does not have a unified brand, an all-embracing representation of everything we do, everything we think and all that makes us what we are. If you don’t have a brand, most PR effort is wasted.

Action

Making it happen

Finally, and trickiest of all, we need the will to make it work. Creating the brand will be impossible unless every member of the industry rallies around it, lives it, delivers it, reinforces it in all that they do and say, and is sufficiently proud of it to resist the temptation to compromise it for the sake of a few dollars. It will require people to say ‘no, we cannot work cheaply; that is not what we do, it’s not who we are, we are better than that. We can provide a lesser service if that’s what you really want, but please understand what you are buying.’

There is a complication. It seems not all DSPs are the same. Some provide an ‘all embracing’ service; others are content with something more basic. There is nothing wrong with that, but to call them both the same thing will make the branding even more difficult. Perhaps the time has come to consider a split.

Where do we go from here?

Solving these issues is not just a job for associations; groups such as FIDI and EuRA will need to help develop the message so that everyone else can latch on to it and speak with a single voice. That message needs to take the focus away from money on to something much warmer, more human, focusing on essential family support. Once done, it needs to become ubiquitous: the image of the industry, the same message, everywhere, throughout the whole promotional mix; a consistent living brand, by everyone, every day. No weak links.

People buy for a combination of three reasons: monetary benefit, prestige and fear. The message needs to incorporate all of these elements but mainly fear: fear of what will happen if people’s needs are not fully addressed; if they are not given the care they deserve; fear of the exorbitant cost of a failed assignment.

I know it will take time and I know it’s not easy. I haven’t formulated the message, and I don’t yet know the right words, but I do believe that this is the right process. This article does not provide the answers; I never expected it to – and I know that not all markets are the same – but my hope is that it will encourage further discussion and provide some structure.

The bigger problem

It seems to me that this is also part of something much bigger. The moving sector has had a similar, though slightly different, problem of commoditisation for years. We have created a market in which the business model of key suppliers is becoming unsustainable. If that happens, everyone loses: corporations, RMCs, movers, relo companies, DSPs and assignees. The whole pack of cards comes down.

Perhaps now is the time, as part of this repositioning, that we have a grown-up discussion with all the players to work out what the future holds, what services will be required, what sort of companies are needed and the true cost of those services. If structural change is required, let it be on our terms and at our pace, not thrust upon us. However, the sector is so fiercely competitive that this might require the services of people who are disinterested, independent, to act as brokers. But that, I suspect, is a discussion for another day.